Innovative Training, Real-World Impact: New Center Elevates Workforce Skills for Human Services and Beyond

The Virtual Skills & Workforce Trainer (VSWT) Center offers a first-of-its-kind, personalized deliberate-practice approach to simulation-based training that reliably builds competence.

Research Assistant Professor Erika Marks tries on the virtual reality (VR) goggles

to enter the Virtual Home Simulation (VHS) for the first time.

 

This fall, the University of Utah launched the Virtual Skills & Workforce Trainer (VSWT) Center—a milestone nearly a decade in the making. Initially seeded in 2017 as a collaboration between the College of Social Work’s Social Research Institute (SRI) and the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine’s Department of Population Health Sciences, the center is leading the response to a national demand for more effective, accessible training in child welfare and human services.

VSWT offers an innovative deliberate-practice approach to preparing frontline professionals. Its immersive tools, including the Virtual Home Simulation (VHS) and the AI-supported Virtual Motivational Interviewing (VMI) app, allow learners to practice essential skills via computer, VR headset, or mobile device. In the simulations, trainees enter virtual homes, identify risks and protective factors, and complete assessments, while receiving immediate feedback based on an expert consensus model. This data-driven approach ensures personalized training, helping workers achieve proficiency before entering the field.

Chad McDonald, co-faculty administrator of the VSWT Center and director of SRI, said VSWT addresses a critical challenge in the field of child welfare. “There is a huge gap between orientation training and expert performance, or from ‘cradle to competence,’ ” he said. “Traditional training often lacks sufficient practice, resulting in wide variations in competence.”

That gap is felt most acutely in under-resourced agencies—that being most agencies—which often lack the funding or staff capacity to offer their employees opportunities for repeated practice. “Previously there was no way to practice to competence outside of working directly with clients,” said Matt Davis, VSWT co-faculty administrator and research associate professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences. “VSWT changes that. It’s a classroom in your pocket.”

The platform offers caseworkers the opportunity to practice anywhere. Supervisors can review employee metrics through the VSWT dashboard, which reveals strengths and pinpoints areas for improvement, and informs performance management. McDonald stresses that this skill development platform is meant to enhance, not replace, human trainers. “We’re empowering supervisors and instructors with context they’ve never had. We’re not removing people from the equation; we’re giving them better tools to support their teams.”

In a pilot random control trial, students at the U demonstrated statistically significant improvements in target behaviors. “In this trial, the data show that these tools are at least as effective as attending class for achieving targeted learning objectives,” McDonald said. VSWT’s impact already extends far beyond Utah. The skills modules are being tested or implemented across nearly 50 jurisdictions and universities nationwide.

This national reach is enabled by cross-campus collaboration. Software developers, faculty researchers, and community partners work as one team to refine the system. The University’s Software Development and Systems Design Core (SD2C) meet with content experts and agency staff to gather feedback and respond quickly to user needs. “We hear what’s working and what’s not in real time,” McDonald said. “The feedback is essential to creating tools that feel intuitive and effective.”

Looking ahead, the center plans to expand its cooperative model, designed to make these training tools accessible regardless of agency size or budget. “We’re working to make VSWT a co-op so that if an agency with more funding contributes to the development of new skills modules, that feature becomes available to everyone,” Davis said.

While the VSWT is currently child welfare-centric, the skills trained in these modules are ubiquitous. Skills such as Motivational Interviewing, home assessments, suicide screening, safety planning, and client engagement are widely relevant across human services, behavioral health, education, and health care. The center is already working with partners in physical therapy at the University of Utah to adapt modules that help professionals improve clients’ engagement and follow-through at home.

The VSWT Center invites agencies and organizations to explore customized options for their teams or students. Click here to schedule a free consultation.

McDonald emphasized that the VSWT is not simply a point of sale. The team offers design, development, and implementation support, as well as consultation and data analysis to help organizations understand how the tools will most effectively integrate into their existing workforce development infrastructures. Beyond improving workforce outcomes, McDonald believes the training platform will help the field deepen its understanding of what effective practice actually looks like. “VSWT enables us to better identify which behaviors may be most strongly correlated with positive outcomes for children and families. Once we have a better understanding, we can train more intentionally toward expertise,” he said.

Davis agrees and underscores the center’s commitment to equal opportunity. “If an agency can’t afford this, then we haven’t done our job. We’ll work with them through the co-op model or help them find funding,” he said. “The most impactful thing is that workers can practice in a safe learning environment before they work with real families.”